Page 32 of The Vanishing Place

She was alone in the dark. And she was going to die.

Effie tried to move, her legs first, then her arms, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t, because her body was dying. She was going to die alone in the trees.

Pain shot through her head, like a knife gutting out the bit behind her eye sockets, and she let out a whimper. It was dark, so dark that it swallowed up the bush around her. With no moon to carve out the shapes of the trees, and no torch, she couldn’t see anything. Just a wall of black.

Just blackness and the piercing cries of morepork. Effie sniffed and blinked her eyes. She shouldn’t have angered him.

She shuffled forward an inch, her bare arms and legs trembling, but her weakened body collapsed to the cold earth.

She shouldn’t have said those things.

I bet there’s some girl. Some girl that you’re fucking .

The muscles in her neck spasmed as she strained to lift her head, a tiredness rooting her body to the ground.

The heavy rain had stopped, and the ponga draped in front of her like a curtain.

But the ground was wrong. There was no softness to it.

No dirt. No dampness. It was hard and flat and rough. Like slats of wood.

Like a box .

Fear beat in Effie’s stomach as she strained to remember—to think—but the blade behind her eyes kept slicing up the memories.

His face.

His outstretched arms.

She shouldn’t have made him angry.

Effie tried to kick and thrash, screaming at her leaden body. No . Not heavy. She was tied up. There was a rope tied around her wrists and ankles. It was tearing into her skin, chewing away at her flesh.

Effie fought until the exhaustion claimed her muscles and forced her to stop. A little voice whispered into her ear that it was her fault. Her cruel words. That she’d done this.

Of course she’d done this.

Her eyes flickered closed. And half-conscious, she saw it. An orange glimmer of light. A sphere.

Then, with her cheek pressed to the floor of the crate, a scream spilled from her. Loud and feral and wild.

And the light vanished.

When she eventually opened her eyes, Dad was carrying her, holding her like a baby. Effie looked up through the haze of pain and sleepiness and caught a glimpse of his face, his eyes and cheeks damp. She pressed herself into the beat of his chest and let him save her.

—

The next morning, as Dad helped her wash—his big hands slow and gentle—he found flecks of tree nettles in Effie’s hair.

Little green teeth of poison.

Dad said she must have stumbled through a patch of them when she ran off. The white stinging hairs must have poisoned her. He had paled as he said it, and he’d quickly wiped away tears—but Effie had seen them.

Dad didn’t leave her side the whole day. He brought her soup and warm tea and wet flannels, and he let her sleep in his bed.

That evening, Tia found a picture of tree nettles in one of Mum’s old nature books, and she laid it out on the bed between Effie and Aiden. Aiden was like a bony hot water bottle, just sharp corners and heat.

“Look,” said Tia, her eyes wide. “They’re, like, super dangerous.

They can give you headaches and make you all confused and blurry.

And they can stop your arms and legs from working properly.

” Tia’s mouth hung open. “Woah.” She prodded at the page.

“It says here that in 1961, some guy even died after he was stung.” She turned back to Effie. “You could have died.”

Aiden gasped.

“But she didn’t,” said Dad, squeezing Effie’s arm, the skin still red and sore from the nettles. Not rope. “And she’s going to be absolutely fine.”

Effie looked at the picture. Just some stupid plant.

Asher appeared in the door then, his eyes cold.

He flicked his gaze from Effie to her dad, then he walked in and placed a cup of tea on the table next to her.

As Tia shoved the book at Dad, saying something about paralysis, Asher leaned in so close that his lips brushed against Effie’s hair, and he whispered into her ear.

“He’s lying,” he said. “I saw him.”

Then he stood and walked out. But the chill of his words clung to her as the door closed behind him.

Thud .

Effie pulled Aiden into her. But the heat of him wasn’t enough now.